Nina Marie Daniele, Ryan Gosling, Belal Muhammad
Credit: USA TODAY Sports, USA TODAY Network, Instagram
UFC welterweight title challenger Belal Muhammad recently compared himself to Hollywood actor Ryan Gosling, leaving Nina Marie Daniele in splits. MMA influencer Nina Drama has become an integral part of the fight week build-up, especially for PPV events. While other interviewers focus on fight details and tactics, Nina tries to lighten the mood by asking playful questions, which serve as good entertainment for the fans and also help break the monotony.
Paddy Pimblett, Curtis Blaydes, Molly McCann, Arnold Allen, and Muhammad sat down for an interview with Nina prior to UFC 304. When picking their celebrity look-alikes, Pimblett stated that people felt he looked similar to Owen Wilson and Owen Hart because of his long blonde hair. Meanwhile, Allen claimed he looked like serial killer Jeffery Dahmer, and McCann chose Mrs. Trunchbull from the movie, ‘Matilda,’ as her exact match.
“They usually say that I am close to Ryan Gosling, if you look at it from a different angle.”
To which Nina dead-panned, “With your eyes closed!”. She even jokingly agreed that Muhammad did look like Gosling from ‘The Notebook.’ The interview then continued as usual with Blaydes picking out Gerald Levert as his lookalike.
Unfortunately, despite Muhammad’s self-proclaimed resemblance to Gosling, the welterweight is not very confident about his features. In fact, ‘Remember the Name’ believes that his appearance is a key reason why he is not loved like certain other fighters in the UFC.
Muhammad explains why he is not loved by UFC fans
Despite being one of the best fighters in his division, Muhammad is not a fan favorite by any stretch of the imagination. The 36-year-old is often booed during fights, which he feels is extremely unfair. In fact, the situation got so bad that interviewers started asking the welterweight what he was doing wrong to deserve such hate.
In one of these interviews with UFC journalist Kevin Iole on YouTube, Muhammad stated that fans hate him since he is not six feet tall and does not have the power to knock out his opponents in a single punch, saying,
“I think, just coz I don’t have the crazy attributes right? I’m not 6 foot 6 long with crazy one-punch knockout power….I think that the real MMA fans love it.”
However, Muhammad insisted that only casual UFC fans think this way, while people who actually understand the sport have always supported his talents inside the ring. Moreover, the Illinois native added that he does not allow the hate to get to him, and will continue performing to the best of his abilities until the fans change their perception.
